ps. one important number is missing in the above scheme - the first reflection off the front wall in a typical conventional setup is delayed by ca 3-3.5 ms
with FCUFS there is no such reflection and secondary wall-ceiling reflection is delayed by ca 7 ms as stated above, again much better result without the need of moving the speaker 1 m into the room ...usually to the dismay of other family members
pps.
and - as far as lateral reflections are concerned - if FCUFS are positioned in Beveridge arrangement (see the first post of this thread), then it is realistic even in a medium living room (5x6 m) to have all of them delayed by more than 10 ms
Linkwitz's requirements of "reflected sounds delayed by >6 ms" and of "the reflections are full spectrum copies of the direct sound" easily met in almost any room, nice, isn't it?
and - as far as lateral reflections are concerned - if FCUFS are positioned in Beveridge arrangement (see the first post of this thread), then it is realistic even in a medium living room (5x6 m) to have all of them delayed by more than 10 ms
Linkwitz's requirements of "reflected sounds delayed by >6 ms" and of "the reflections are full spectrum copies of the direct sound" easily met in almost any room, nice, isn't it?
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I use DCX2496 effectively in several versions employing Pluto concept.
First build for proof of concept used Peerless 830392 and same rubber boot as Linkwitz. Tweeter was North D25-06S.
. Crossover was set around 1.4kHz L-R 48dB/oct slopes. Level matching, EQ, and delay where tweaked to get smoother response, and a decent reverse polarity null. Detail/clarity blew away any other speaker I had listened to. A good friend, an excellent woodworker, and teacher of jimbe dressed up a pair using same drivers:
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In above pic note sub behind left speaker.
830392 is rather excursion limited.
My next build uses SEAS L16RN-SL called out by Linkwitz. Instead of adapter to 4" pipe, I went with 6" pipe.
I bought Aura 2" as called out, but also Peerless 2". In part to be a little different I use the Peerless. Crossover point of 1kHz is used. EQ for bass extension works well, but when pushed IMD reduces clarity/detail of space between instruments/voices. With sub speakers may be pushed very hard. I use bridged Hafler Pro2400 for sub, a second Hafler Pro2400 for SEAS drivers, and a Halfer Pro1200 for tweeters.
Implemented as such with DCX2496, IR measurements may be used for basis of inverse transfer function for flattening frequency response and phase response via two channel convolution setup.
Detail is sharper, space between instruments better defined. Sound of drum stick making contact with metal is clear, concise and hangs in space with no trace of sound originating from speakers. Attack of drum is palpable much more as real drum.
With multichannel sound card and convolution, DCX2496 is skipped, allowing use of much steeper crossover; >100dB/oct. With this I've used two bridged Hafler Pro2400 to drive SEAS, and Pro2400 in stereo for tweeters. IMD is well controlled, transients can be driven right to below amplifier clipping without deterioration in character of sound. I don't expose my ears to this more than a few minutes at a time.
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Here is the problem with your angle. For me it is not acoustical treatment versus Digital room correction, it is both.
I don't care if it was Peter, Paul, and Michael, it was a poor choice of an example since it in no way describes music.
Since rather than addressing what I stated you are desperately going to focus on two words. We will use continuous instead. Music is not speech, since you insist on avoiding the obvious.
So what. The conclusion remains the same. Floor bounce = bad, ceiling reflection = bad. I can hardly see how that would change with a speaker firing its output towards the ceiling. You are parsing everything in an attempt to find some sort of angle, and it is not working very well.
But it hasn't. It just created a new problem. Reflections = smearing, and ceiling reflections = bad. Your own example says it pretty clearly.
Once again you are making the assumption that I have not heard a flooder. Do you really think you are the only person who has built this kind of speaker? And no, peer reviewed is necessary because people make a lot of claims(like yourself), and those claims must be tested and verified as true.
You were found wrong above...you want to try again.
It applies to all speakers, not just forward firing. It applies even more to a speaker that fires all of its output upwards. Don't BS me, I am not stupid.
Excuses, excuses. They don't market or sell this type of speaker because it offers no advantages over conventional front firing speakers. Only in your imagination do you THINK it does. If it did, the big boys would be all over it.
No I don't, but I also know they don't favour inferior products like a flooder speaker either.
You have completely failed in making a convincing argument for the flooder speaker. Nobody sells them, nobody is talking about them(except you), there is no proof they are superior in any way to front firing speakers, and you have spun, parsed, cajoled your way through all of this.
Gaaf, you are not fooling anyone here. We know you like the design, and are trying to build it up as the best thing since chocolate pudding. But the claims you are making about its benefits are false and weak. Why don't you just admit you like the design and leave it at that instead of flooding the thread with nonsense, mistruths, and informational twisting?
http://www.carlssonplanet.com/v1.php
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Wow, several system. Man does that give you a world of knowledge and experience
Pop, rock and soul recordings are not aimed at the audiophile, they are aimed at the masses. It is not the job of these genre's to satisfy audiophiles, they are largely aimed at radio play. Classical and Jazz did not experience the loudness war, and they were designed for the audiophiles. It pays to keep things in context and not get things twisted. And let's be clear here, the loudness war for the most part is over, so you can stop using that as a crutch and excuse.
Because you love the music, does not make a recording by these artists "audiophile". Your subjective opinion is yours, I may not think any of the recordings by these artists are particularly "audiophile".
So a Volkswagen Bug has the same footprint as a SUV? My Honda CR-Z has the same footprint as a Nissan Altima? I don't think so. My living room is quite different than my neighbors, so they cannot have the same footprint.
I don't think you really know what you are talking about.
Maybe we are not trying to do a 1 to 1 match with with a car interior because of the variability of them. I think it is stupid to use ANY car as a reference, as they all have different acoustical properties based on their internal volume, seat materials, speaker placement, and how many people are in it. The box approximates the fidelity of the speakers, and that is all we are looking for.
So who decides which tuning is right, and which is wrong? You? You cannot decide for me if my tastes are different from yours. 10 different front firing speakers can sound completely different, and who decides which is right? There are front firing speakers that have controlled directivity, wide directivity in the mids and highs, and everything in between, and they don't sound alike. There presentation is going to be different based on their design goals, so it is naive to assume all front firing speakers sound similar, all omnidirectional speakers will sound similar, or that ANY design will sound similar to another.
If you think a flooder and my Dunlavy's sound alike, then you need your ears checked toot sweet. They couldn't sound more different. You really need to wisen up here.
If you think a speaker with controlled dispersion should sound the same as a omnidirectional speaker, then you are not showing yourself as very bright here. These speakers are going to interact with the room very differently, and therefore will sound very different from each other. A omnidirectional speaker will have a more diffused and spacious sound, and the controlled directivity speakers will have more pin point imaging, be a more intimate sounding speaker. Two different presentations of the same mix.
I don't know what a hard spot is, it does not mean anything. NO speaker will sound the same all over the room. Room modes and nodes prevent this from happening. You can even move an inch to the left or right, and the bass response will be different. That is basic room acoustics. Do you understand basic room acoustics? I does not appear so based on your comments.
If it seems like I am exaggerating it is because you like to skip detail, and don't appear to know what you are talking about.
If you don't think it is true, then you have never heard a space generator. The effect a flooder gives is basically the same effect as the box gives. The difference is the box can be finely adjusted for its effect, and the flooder cannot.
Then it makes the design pointless.
I know what the design looks like, and I know what you they sound like. So what's the point of this?
Graaf,
Your pictures are clear, but simplistic. Even if we assumed a perfectly hemispherical radiation pattern (which it is not) from a FCUF speaker, it radiates an infinite variety of angles of dispersion, not single laser beams of light.
The net result of infinite specular reflections off floor, ceiling, back and side walls is a random distribution of the reflected energy, as you point out, in ordinary English, to distribute randomly is scattering.
Whether one uses the term "scattered", "flooded" or "fired", the net result is the same, a random distribution of the FCUFS reflected energy, and a low ratio of direct to reflected sound.
You happen to like the effect of that ratio, while I prefer the opposite, a high ratio of direct to reflected sound.
My listening rooms have an upward left angle (upward on the right in the kitchen) due to the shed roof, and each room has large 4 bladed ceiling fan/light fixtures which further diffuse reflections compared to a mirror-like surface. Although my ceilings are smooth other than the many fixtures, a diffusive "popcorn" finish is preferred by many in this region.
Art
Soundtrackmixer, you are really one of a kind. It's totally impossible to have an adult conversation with you, so I will stop. You can make statements like 99% of all speaker are frontfiring and therefore the best speakers, but the rest of us can't make such statements without being stupid or come with ASSumptions
Then why didn't you post Peter's whole comment? You stopped at floor reflection, and he actually mentioned that the ceiling reflections are bad as well. You didn't quote that because you would have made my point. Peter's point contained no caveat based on speaker design, it was a very direct statement. Ceiling reflections are bad, it does not matter what speaker design we are talking about.
Oh really, what conventional setup sits in an anechoic chamber? What conventional system relies solely on mono signals?
Maybe where you live it is common to have reflective floors. But not here in America. Wall to wall carpet dominates most houses here. Every audiophile and casual listener I know has carpet in their living rooms or listening rooms. So I think it is naive to use what is done in your neck of the woods as representative of everyone.
Yes it was. The explanation was BS at best. You still have not provided any evidence of that validates that explanation. Where is it?
It is not expensive or impractical, stop the snow job. Is building a speaker cheap and simple to a person who has no clue how to do so? This comment is so stupid it defies logic.
You are still here arguing its benefits aren't you?
Don't play stupid here. I have outlined those issues - read them.
Yeah, you half quoted is more like it.
Was my question naive, or is your explanation just weak and lame? I choose the latter. Peter stated pretty clearly that floor and ceiling reflections are bad, so why would he build a speaker that floods the ceiling with reflections? He obviously utilizes his brain, maybe you should do the same. Manufacturers design speakers that work in most people rooms, and it is pretty obvious a flooder is not one of those speakers. They build speakers that are marketable to most people, and a flooder obviously does not fit that bill.
Maybe you should learn to deal with reality, instead of making one up for your own convenience.
On a hard uncovered floor. It is obvious the results would be different on a floor with a pad and carpet. Why don't you state that point?
the V1 has already been covered in this thread, it's a FCUFS but rather suboptimally executed
cheap fullrange Philips in a cube shaped BR - it's target market wasn't an audiophile but it is historically important
Who said ANY speaker was the best speaker? Exaggerate much? I said no such thing. Perhaps a little reading and comprehension lesson is in order here. I emphatically stated that a flooder is no better than a front firing system, and I have said that over and over.
So the conversation is less adult because I am not buying what you are selling here? The problem is you have failed to make a case for the flooder, and that is all there is to it.
So take your ball and jacks and go home if that is what you desire. You certainly are not going to convince me that a speaker that floods the room with reflections will yield a better sonic result than one that does not.
Art, Graaf seems to live in a world where all ceilings are smooth, and all floors have no carpet on them. Considering the fact that my music room has both carpet, and a popcorn ceiling that world is pretty strange to me. I also have a ceiling fan in that room as well. How ironic.....
but can we apply the law of reflection? I know it is a simplification but it is widely applied in audio, right?
and reflections have directions c'mon
arrows on my scheme don't represent "laser" sound beams - they represent directions of reflections. Isn't it quite clear?and yes, there are infinite angles but not all in the direction of the listener directly or via secondary reflections and so on, right?
what is important is how many of reflections in the direction of the listener are there within the first 6 ms, 10 ms, 20 ms and so on, isn't it?
but we can certainly say that late reflections are really scattered - perhaps even we can say diffuse - which theoretically is a very good thing, don't You agree?
yes - but it is not low D/R ratio that compromises space and detail - early reflections do it, some detrimental effects dominate especially <6 ms, some <10 ms, and by 20 ms it is rather commonly understood that all detrimental effects are gone
especially it applies to reflections incoherent with the direct sound, typical in case of vertical reflections and conventional speakers
perhaps
but You cannot say that low D/R per se compromises quality if early reflections are under control
and actually with FCUFS, especially in the Beveridge arrangement early reflections seem to be much better controlled than in a conventional setup, please check out the calculations I did above, is anything wrong with them?
problem is that in practice it is impossible to effectively treat acoustically the floor reflection
consider please how extensive and complex wall and ceiling acoustical treatments have to be to be really effective:
RPG Diffusor Systems, Inc.
Can You do anything like that with the floor?
Please don't tell me that a thick carpet does it all. Be serious
Take a look at the scheme I posted above. Consider that it is a UniQ driver. Do You seriously believe that the degree of delay and also degree of coherence don't make any difference in reflections?
early reflections, especially incoherent with the direct sound, not all reflections
I really find it hard to believe that You actually read Toole's book.
Have You? Then please tell us more. Make a valuable contribution to this thread
please
a carpet? please be serious
c'mon check out how effective acoustical treatments look alike:
http://www.rpginc.com/index.cfm
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I agree that early reflections are the most problematic.
The hemispherically radiated FCUFS early reflections if placed near the wall are <6 ms, seemingly compromising "space and detail", as you put it.
By 16-20ms, specular reflections are perceived as discreet echos, I'd also agree that diffuse reflections are less detrimental to sound quality than discreet echos.
Low direct to reflected ratios definitely reduce intelligibility, I have always preferred intelligibility over the quality of "spaciousness" added by room reflections. I prefer listening to speakers on-axis outdoors than indoors if the weather permits, eliminating the majority of reflections, allowing me to hear the music as recorded or reproduced.
If you prefer to listen off-axis with your speakers pointed at the ceiling, that is fine, listening 70-80 degrees off axis with a short rear wall reflection is near my absolute last choice.
Different strokes for different folks, one man's meat is another man's poison, etc.
Art
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